Stephen Harper says he’s more concerned about God’s judgment than how history books rate his term in office, telling a Quebec magazine in a markedly personal interview that preserving relationships with family is far more important than worrying about a political legacy.
Driving his point home, the Prime Minister told Quebec City’s Prestige magazine that it would be a “disaster” to win elections but lose one’s family in the process.
The interview, which appears in the Quebec City publication’s September issue, is an attempt to soften Mr. Harper’s hard-edged image in the province, where Conservative fortunes have slid since the 2008 election.
The Tory Leader has long cultivated support in Quebec City, where he has a much more solid base than in Montreal and its suburbs.
In the article, Mr. Harper said it’s too early to consider how history will treat him, adding that a more pressing and ever-present priority is ensuring family comes first.
“The important thing, for me, is to preserve family ties. I can win elections, but if I lose my family, it’s a disaster.”
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Excelllent interview and article done in the ‘heart of Quebec.’
It seems to me that the vast majority of Canadians could easily identify with PM Harper’s POV on this one. He has the priorities straight where his personal family comes before politics and he’s engaged in politics for the right reasons. A sign of human intelligence when you acknowledge the higher power, Almighty God. We can note a proper placed humility here even given his honed intellectual processes. The fact that he can chalk up progress on so many initiatives, no doubt is attributed to his stated acknowledgement of the “Higher Powers.” Why hasn’t this interview surfaced till now since it issued in June. And he intends to enjoy his teenagers now to the fullest. God bless the leader and his family!
Anna , the Globe is on its Christian witch hunt again.
Harper emphasized his family .. but what does the Globe put in the headline?
” ‘God’s verdict’ outranks history’s, PM says”
And what comments does that elicit? Here’s a sample:
“Keep your God out of my government Harper. This idiot uses the God card like Bush did but Harper is serious about it when Bush only did it for votes. Is Canada slipping into religious fanaticism just like the Countries we’re trying to help?
STOP IT! ”
The Globe is on its subliminal message to nail Harper with being a so-con that if ever given a majority then he’ll stop SSM and prevent abortions.
That is why it was so important for Hudak to pick Sue Ann Levy , who is gay, to run in the St Paul’s by-election. These are the emotional issues that Liberals fight elections on now. It’s the only thing left for them.
Lets leave God out of politics. Certainly is one of many ways to lose an election or stop one from achieving a majority. Even the lieberals recognize this and their not the brightest people to grace this great land.
Inclusivity doesn’t get into ‘shuddup’ very well.
UV “Even the lieberals recognize this (leaving God out of politics)” .. they do? This is in the Globe comments section:
In Lester Pearson’s public address on the Canadian Flag…he says ‘by God’s grace’..and ‘God bless our flag’..and ‘God Bless Canada’.
Here’s Chrétien talking about his facial paralysis: “When I was a kid people were laughing at me,” he said at an appearance in Nova Scotia. “But I accepted that because God gave me other qualities and I’m grateful.”
Trudeau in an interview “I believe in life after death, I believe in God and I’m a Christian.”
To my way of thinking someone who has faith in their god or Buddha or whatever is a sign that they recognize their fallibility as human beings and I’m fine with that as long as they don’t start saying “God told me to do such and such”.
But this whole Globe propaganda piece is about sticking it to Harper any which way that they can so the MSM can get their Liberal crony capitalists back in power and get more ads for the monopoly Post Office in the Globe for which they will reciprocate by cheering on the Liberals for free … on and on with the 2 way, left wing, patronage cycle.
Gee, I wonder whose side the ‘morale majority’ is on. Again, lets keep God out of politics.
“lets keep God out of politics”
UV the problem is that you don’t tell that to the socialists too.
Religion comes in many forms. The Socialist religion and its recent weapon, the climate change religion, continue to try and invade our liberty.
The Socialist Globe and Mail is subliminally attacking Harper’s religion, but the socialist religion is, rather than liberating the individual, encouraging dependency (on socialist ideology), bias and mean-spiritedness against any who reject the Socialist Religion. The goal of the Socialists is to then set up an elite class of ‘limousine socialists’ who get their emotional highs from living off the government bureaucracy class and setting up patronizing schemes for us ‘peasants’.
If you count socialism as a religion (and I certainly do) then 95% of the world’s population has a religion, people tend to need one. The key is to pick one that separates church and state. Socialism doesn’t separate its religious ideology, it is the State.
Reformed Judeo Christianity is as safe as you can get in terms of the least amount of government intervention into the State.
All political parties should keep religion out of politics. Thats not the place for it, especially now that Canada is multicultural, multireligious and anyone who plays that card will lose at the polls along with health care and abortion.
Re: #8 — “All political parties should keep religion out of politics.”
Not possible UV.
Then they will play a losing game Jack. Canada has changed and I feel for the better now that we have a left leaning Government in Ottawa, albeit a minority one.
Political ideologies are somewhat heirs to religion.
1) Like religions they predefine rules for human behaviour, even for situations that haven’t happened yet.
2) They seem to have instant answers for moral dilemmas which did not exist when they were conceived.
3) All morality is derived from a non-physical, non-communicative entity synonymous with human goodness (“God”, “The invisible hand”, “the will of the people”)
4) The rules seem to always be imparted and modified by a ruling class (Vatican, CEO’s, Communist Party) for whom these rules always seem to be quite convenient.
The biggest difference is that political ideologies are man-made and circumstantial, rather than imparted by an all knowing God, so adherents look less stupid when they completely reverse their position on important tenets.
“The rules {of political ideology} seem to always be imparted and modified by a ruling class (Vatican, CEO’s, Communist Party) for whom these rules always seem to be quite convenient”
Not if you believe that:
- the middle class should rule not the elitists.
- the government is working for us, that we aren’t its peasants.
- the Vatican is separate from “the government” and we are not the Islamic Republic of Iran or Pakistan where religious leaders are the ruling class.
- we can set up the economy so that CEO’s are at the mercy of the consumer who has lots competitive choices (unlike CUPE government monopolies)
- our political ideology should be to have NO political ideology but instead to adapt to a changing world economy, like in biology.
A strong, well educated, adaptive middle class can do all of that. It does not need rulers, it rules!
The middle class doesn’t rule a damn thing. The captains of industry run capitalist societies. The government isn’t working for the middle class when they deregulate markets like California’s power grid purely for the sake of corporate manipulation. Money was made but definitely not for the benefit of californians.
Your general idea of an open and adaptive system will be hard to sell because many voters thrive on the idea of “good” and “evil”. There has to be a right side and a wrong side, as a couple of contributors on this site like to admonish about when I claim to be independent. You need a dogma of some sort to enforce this system.
They didn’t deregulate California, that’s the problem; it was bastardized by incompetent regulation.
Californian is the model you otherwise defend..ie big government, interventionist government . But the left coast has screwed over the middle class for way too long with excessive payrolls in the equivalent of CUPE carried on the backs of the real economy which is now blowing up there. California dreamin’ is going down along with that other media centre of rot and socialist dreaming …NY.
And you know where people are moving to? Where the winners are? Texas!
“Your general idea of an open and adaptive system will be hard to sell because many voters thrive on the idea of “good” and “evil”.
I’m surprised you said that Cynapse. I was under the impression you thought everyone was equal and only the “systems” were bad. But yes, precisely because there are good and evil people; good and bad cultures; and good and bad commercial ideas; thus the middle class can understand when the Sarah Palins articulate to the middle class that they are much better off looking after themselves than waiting for their “Messiah”.
You need the opposite of “dogma”, you need self confidence to find your own path. Plus you need a strong suspicion of people from the government who say they are “here to help”.
I don’t defend California’s government. Obviously it’s not that good if it goes bankrupt. But it seems even you seem to default to a binary reasoning between the virtuousness of free market anarchy vs evil government agents and their birkenstock-clad union handlers. Both systems have failed miserably, but you seem to boil this situation down to people blindly backing one or the other.
“Where the winners are? Texas!”
No kidding. That’s also where Enron was
the Sarah Palins articulate to the middle class that they are much better off looking after themselves than waiting for their “Messiah”.
Sarah Palin is a messiah to the land-owning, socially-conservative class willing to throw the less fortunate under the bus to protect their investments. What they don’t understand is that these same special interests won’t stop at screwing the less fortunate.
Sorry nom, your answer are quite good but you stand close to a 0% chance of convincing a member of the anxious class that his interests are best served by ensuring more freedom for the haves and ensuring more choice that he couldn’t afford anyway. My cynicism tends to be ahead of the curve, so expect in a couple years for these tea parties and no-taxes-under-any-circumstance love-ins to dissipate as well, as people realize they’ve just made serfs of themselves in the name of false freedom. A tax cut doesn’t mean mean much if you can’t afford the services that are lost in the process.
You need the opposite of “dogma”, you need self confidence to find your own path. Plus you need a strong suspicion of people from the government who say they are “here to help”.
History has shown some should have an even stronger suspicion of coalitions of privileged citizens seeking “freedom”. Like “equality”, freedom is a pretty broad term so it’s necessary to estimate what exactly these abnormally-well funded groups tend to do with their new-found freedoms.
I was under the impression you thought everyone was equal and only the “systems” were bad. But yes, precisely because there are good and evil people; good and bad cultures; and good and bad commercial ideas;
Oh, I do think everyone is equal, but you can’t afford to do that. Unless you are fortunate enough to be a true sociopath, you have to convince yourself that some cultures and people are naturally bad, and that they deserve that happens to them. There’s no other way the winners could justify dumping toxic waste in their backyard or subjecting their children to slave conditions. It’s more efficient, you see, and we need our cheap sweaters/coffee/etc.
Before that tool (can’t remember his name) reappears to address me as “comrade”, It’s probably a good time to stress that the system you, Sarah Palin, etc are trying to uphold has very little in common with Adam Smith’s original conception of capitalism – rather, it is a slightly decentralized form of the mercantile system where the driving force is the multi-national corporation rather than a specific state. These conglomerates have no more loyalty to Canada or the US than they do any other state (as evidenced by the massive movement of manufacturing jobs offshore during the 80′s and 90′s).
South Americans are fantastic at turning their heads to human suffering in the name of their opulence. This is why I keep bring up Brazil as a milestone for the US/Canadian right.
“Enron was”
Was !!!
Yes, that’s the operative word. That’s the key to capitalism.. failure! Let ‘em fail.
The problem with Government Motors that McGuinty and Obama now own is a failure to let failure happen.
Sarah ain’t about socons ( ok , ok , maybe that’s a tiny piece of it for some, not me)… she’s about the middle class.
The debate needs to be about the tension between how much government insurance ( not delivery ) can we afford without killing the golden goose that pays for it .. capitalism. I recommend you don’t let China’s and India’s optimism get ahead of you on that curve .. they ain’t cynics, they’re hungry and smart. India graduates 1 million engineers a year launched into the real economy. We graduate too many BA’s in Gender Studies who can only get a job working for CUPE … we’ll lose if we don’t smarten up-
I recommend you don’t let China’s and India’s optimism get ahead of you on that curve .. they ain’t cynics, they’re hungry and smart. India graduate 1 million engineers a year launched into the real economy
The also have loose to non-existent labour and environmental laws, which keeps costs low. The only way we can match that is via better technology, which requires a better educated and healthier population. Is that likely when we tell the lower third (or half) of the population to play the lottery for health/education?
“Is that likely when we tell the lower third (or half) of the population to play the lottery for health/education?”
who is recommending that?
who is recommending that?
That’s exactly what you’re recommending when you try to make the government anemic. How is it that capitalists, supposedly the ones most attuned to costs and revenues, do not understand that a janitor, housemaid or even a low level corporate employee cannot realistically sock away $100k to put his kid(s) through school? Adding medical costs creates even more of a long shot. The only way out for these people would be retraining (which would require even more money and possibly time that isn’t there), illegal activities (which we can expect to rise dramatically over the next decade) or literally winning the lottery.
The right’s only response is to call them lazy and say they should work harder. To take any other view will have one branded a limp-wristed socialist. But really it’s about numbers, not emotions or ideals.
Come on Cynapse , the government is not “anemic” it is 40% of our GDP.
But they should not be delivering services, they are incompetent at that. Our transit is a joke compared to the rest of the world. We need to get our transit back from CUPE, ditto our garbage. Instead of government wasting money on incompetently delivering those services they should be taking that money to increase insurance on Heath coverage and insuring more student loans for the trades and jobs we need, not subsidizing gender studies.
Ohhh… and I know Philippine “janitors and maids” who own houses. They worked bloody hard for them and they put many 3rd generation whining Canadians to shame.
Ohhh… and I know Philippine “janitors and maids” who own houses. They worked bloody hard for them and they put many 3rd generation whining Canadians to shame.
… thanks to ______(finish the sentence)_______
Hint: Greenspan
Either you way you slice it, the North American economy is entering new territory where last two economic surges were based on lies and … another factor which mentioning would spoil the guessing game above. It’s not healthy.
The government may not be anemic but that is certainly the aim of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and a sizable portion of the tea party-goers.
CUPE may be a problem for transit but so is affordability. Getting rid of the union will obviously help that in the short run, but are you planning to take it private? If so, those ticket prices are going to soar. How else will the needed expansions be funded? By now, we should have had LRT along Don Mills, Eglinton, Steeles and Dufferin. We should also have subways expanded at all 4 ends to the edge of the 905 region, possibly providing a harmonized transit pass with Misssissauga et al. That’s not going to be cheap, my friend.
“… thanks to ______(finish the sentence)_______
Hint: Greenspan”
No , actually it’s:
Thanks be to God.
(And I’m not just saying that to stay on Jack’s Harper/God topic; they are actually good Catholics with lots of “faith”. Seriously, I’ve never seen these folks down)
“but are you planning to take it private? If so, those ticket prices are going to soar”
I was just in Munich, got a day pass, never saw a ticket agent all day long, interchanged with their GO, to a bus, to a subway etc … went for miles and miles … didn’t see any CUPE featherbedding jobs all day long. Their transit is 2 generations ahead of us.
Cynapse we need to spend billions more in Toronto on infrastructure etc. We need government. Lord knows? We may even need more of it.
But the government is currently doing the wrong things. They have built up cushy government monopoly jobs that are part of their elite squad election machinery and we need to take it apart. We also have to stop sending billions East for equalization. If we don’t deal with this problem in Toronto we will be like California…bust.
Cynapse, you’ve chosen a poor analogy with the California deregulation example. Bear with me here, as electricity markets are a rather dear topic for me. California deregulated the wholesale rate of electricity, but maintained the cap on retail rates. A drought-induced shortage of domestically produced power in 2000-01 forced California companies to import far more power than normal, driving up prices. They were unable to pass these costs on to the consumer due to legislated retail price ceilings, and ultimately PG&E and several other utilities filed for bankruptcy.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Guess who made off like bandits and pocketed a multi-billion dollar fortune. Give up yet? It was good ol’ Crown corporation BC hydro. As a direct result of the power crisis in California, the revenue of BC Hydro’s main energy trading subsidiary, Powerex Corp, jumped from around $3 billion in 2000 to $14 billion in 2001 before settling back down then next year. They saw the crisis coming before it even started and loaded up on long contracts. (And seriously, how could they not see it coming? With energy regulation like that, CA was only one mild drought away from exploding wholesale electricity prices. Without being able to pass costs along to consumers, there was no incentive for anyone to conserve, and the price went for the stratosphere.) Anyway, what all this demonstrates is that it’s not always the rich greedy capitalists feeding off the rest of us, even if it seems that way. Obviously that does happen, but you chose the worst possible analogy to show it.
As an amusing aside, California’s lawyers threw a tantrum and filed suit – thus far unsuccessful – against Powerex and several others. Apparently the CA government believes that BC Hydro et. al. were “profiteering” when they feasted off their own regulatory incompetence. Last I heard, the case was thrown out of CA court because the judge ruled that Powerex represented a “foreign state” (as it is owned by the BC government), and thus can only be sued via a Federal bench trial.
As for your assertion that the last two economic expansions were based on lies, I’d agree with you, at least in part. However, I’d qualify that by saying the lies were made possible by reckless expansionist monetary policy, which in turn made credit so cheap and so easy for so long that even the most callous and transparent flim flam man could access the needed leverage to pull off his scams. Conversely, those self same cheap money policies allowed even modest income earners to plunge themselves into debt in order to participate in the bubbles of the day (real estate, Internet stocks, and what have you).
We can point to a lot of faults in the system that allowed this to happen; bond rating agencies failing in their fiduciary responsibilities, insanely complicated derivatives products that should have been disallowed outright, irresponsible and out-of-control financial firms, etc… However, focusing on such regulatory failures means missing the forest for the trees. I strongly believe that cheap money will ALWAYS find an outlet, and NEVER a positive one. It may take years to do its insidious damage, but the bubbles always show, and we never see them until it’s too late. In fact, the BIGGEST lie of all is the lie that says we can grease the wheels of economic progress with cheap money. Where’s John Crow when we need him?